


romance in space metaphors

by aninsidejoke (speakingincode)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Pre-Slash, Yamaguchi Tadashi-centric, au where tsukkiyama are SUPER into english (japanese) class, takes place some point in high school
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:23:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29556984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakingincode/pseuds/aninsidejoke
Summary: “Why are you reading about tides?”“For… school. Extra credit,” Tadashi forces out, and Tsukishima looks at him like he has seven heads.“We go to school together,” Tsukishima helpfully reminds him. “We’re in the same class. Kiryu-sensei lectured us on how we need to study harder instead of begging for extra credit last week.”“Ah… um. It’s… personal,” Tadashi says, and it isn’t a lie enough that his voice doesn’t sound weird when he says it. But Tsukishima doesn’t seem to notice.“The reason you’re reading—” His eyes briefly flicker to Tadashi’s phone screen. “—SciJinks dot gov article ‘What causes tides?’ is personal?”Or: Yamaguchi's watching an awful thriller about climate change at Tsukishima's house when he learns about the relationship between the moon and the ocean. He thinks to himself that it reminds him of the relationship between him and his best friend, and doesn't let the thought go for the next straight week.
Relationships: Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 7
Kudos: 78





	romance in space metaphors

**Author's Note:**

> silly fic with a weird premise i wrote back in late november in a crazy three-hour frenzy just so i could fail my single november challenge, no-write november. it was kind of inspired by the song [moon, roll me away](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVWt41E5qAg) by you, me, and everyone we know but it's only vaguely related.
> 
> hope you enjoy the fic!

Tadashi kind of learns about it once, something offhandedly mentioned in a terrible thriller they’re watching about climate change. The moon and the ocean.

He doesn’t really get the concept, when they see it in the movie. Later, he looks it up online and tries to understand it, but it still mostly goes over his head. 

The thought stays there, though, in the back of his mind, for a long time. The moon and the ocean. Taking up space when he’s on the train and the car around him is quiet, when he’s about to go to sleep and he pulls the blinds in his bedroom to block out the dim glow of the streetlight. When they’re in class and Tadashi catches sight of the yellow back of Tsukishima’s head.

Tadashi grasps it like this: something about the moon making the waves in the ocean, and if they weren’t there, the ocean would rage indefinitely, destroying all the earth around it. Or maybe it just wouldn’t move at all? One of those, or neither of those, but if the moon wasn’t there, the ocean would be completely different in a bad way. Tadashi is fairly sure of that. 

Also, if the ocean wasn’t there, the moon would… probably be fine? And that’s okay, and not really the point. Or… there is no point. Or… He’s confused now. 

If Tadashi could, he’d ask Tsukishima about it. Tsukishima would know, because he knows everything, or at least everything about this kind of thing. Science. The weather. Even though he’s always been more of a biology guy, science and all the stuff that comes with it, it’s always come easier to him.

He can’t, though. Ask Tsukishima about it. It’s… Tsukishima is… the moon, right? 

Tsukishima hates that comparison, thinks it’s overdone, unoriginal, maudlin, whatever boring too-pretentious word he wants to describe it as, but Tadashi’s always thought it was cool, having _tsuki_ in his name and just… being like that. Bright, enough to stand out that you’d notice him every time he’s out, but not enough that it blinds you. Cool, too, and far away in a way that you can’t touch but also that if Tadashi ever wanted to take the time to see him, he could just look for him, and he would be there. Even at times you think he wouldn’t be. Like when you look up at the bright blue sky and you see the little white outline of a circle and you think to yourself, _Hey, what’s that doing there?_ But in a good way. Because it’s Tsukishima, and Tadashi cares more about seeing him than seeing the moon.

Tsukishima doesn’t get it, Tadashi thinks, because he has it. Like how the girl who sits in front of him in homeroom had to explain fake eyelashes to him when he pointed out the thing falling from her eyelid and she said _We don’t all have long eyelashes like you, Yamaguchi-san,_ when he told her it sounded kind of scary and like too much work. 

Well – Tadashi doesn’t think he’d care if his eyelashes were short, also. Since… he’s not a girl, or he stopped obsessing over how he looked when he got his growth spurt in middle school. But that’s kind of the point he’s making, also. Maybe Tadashi would care enough to put glue on his eyes, in the same way he’s certain Tsukishima would understand how cool it is to have a name that matches your personality if he had _yama_ in his name and no intimidating presence.

After all, Akiteru gets it, and joined in on buying Tsukishima things with the moon on it when he noticed Tadashi starting the joke. He did bring the whole argument up to Tsukishima once, but he’d just tilted his head and said, _Your first name_ , which Tadashi didn’t really understand, and then he looked away from him like he was embarrassed and told him to stop talking about stupid things.

(Later, when Tadashi got home, he thinks he realized it – _Tadashi_ , written with the same characters for _Hachiko_ , which is… embarrassing. For Tsukishima, Tadashi guesses, but mostly for him, because Tsukishima thinks “tragic dog figure” fits him the way he thinks Tsukishima fits the _moon_ , and… Tadashi hates when people say this kind of thing to him – _How are you so close to Tsukishima? You’re so nice!_ – but he does agree with them sometimes. Not most of the time. But he does think he deserves a friend who thinks he’s cooler than a terminally sad puppy, or at least someone who at least doesn’t tell him what exactly he reminds him of right after he compares him to something as cool as a _celestial body_.)

Anyway, it is like that. Since he was in grade school, Tadashi’s associated Tsukishima with the moon to the point that looking up and finding the moon is the first thing he does whenever he’s outside at night (and he smiles to himself a little when he sees it), which is _cool_ and _awesome_ for Tsukishima, and in this moon and ocean thing – of course he isn’t suddenly going to be the ocean. Tsukishima is the moon.

And the ocean is…

It’s too… strangely poetic, or overdramatic. Maudlin. Tadashi would give Tsukishima that one, if he said that when he told him about this, but he won’t tell him about this because he would say that. But… that doesn’t stop Tadashi from thinking about it.

It doesn’t make sense, a little. Tadashi doesn’t mind telling other people about things like this. Well, not _The relationship between the moon and the ocean reminds me of me and Tsukki_ , exactly, because some things are always embarrassing, but… _Tsukki’s really cool! Tsukki’s one of the nicest people I know, deep down!_ One time when he was alone with Yachi and she joked about still being afraid of Tsukishima: _When I just met him, I was afraid of him, too. But I thought he was cool even more than that, so I decided to not be afraid of him, and I talked to him, and… he wasn’t scary at all! He wasn’t scary at all, and if I didn’t go up to him then and didn’t become his friend I wouldn’t… be here with you at all. I probably wouldn’t even still be playing volleyball. So… you should try that, too, Yachi-chan! Do what I did. Just stop being afraid of him._

(Yachi’d replied, _That’s nice you like him so much, but… it really isn’t that easy. Maybe you’re a little scary, too, Yamaguchi-kun_ , and that’d been kind of cool. He felt a little like a mountain then.)

Tsukishima knows more embarrassing things about him than anyone else. When he was little and he’d pretend to be the black Super Ranger because he was strong and fought mostly for good but was also a little morally ambiguous which he thought was really cool. Tsukishima was there. So the poeticness— poeti— poeticism of it, it’s not really the problem. It’s just— the other part.

Tsukishima knows what he means to him, because he’s Tsukishima and he knows everything and he’d be an idiot not to know that by now, but saying it is… it would’ve been easier when he was younger. But he also doesn’t need to, because Tsukishima knows, and also, it isn’t possible for _If you were the moon, I would be the ocean_ to ever come up in normal conversation.

Unless it was a thought that set up permanent residence in your mind after learned about it watching a boring “thriller” about climate change because you thought it would be a good halfway point between your preference for movies that were made to entertain people and your best friend’s preference for movies involving niche science but it turned out to be so terrible your best friend fell asleep with his head lolled back on the couch (face weirdly serene in the television light) and you weren't able to recount the plot the day after watching the whole thing because you were thinking about a science concept they brought up for no reason. But Tadashi can’t really control that.

It’s just— Tadashi’s never felt like a mountain which never mattered until he met Tsukishima who reminded him of the moon, but he isn’t sure if that mattered anyway because it’s not like the mountain and the moon have any relationship at all, it’s just… they are both there, and exist, but with the ocean it’s… Tadashi can be the ocean. Or it’s not even… it’s not even that he wants to be the ocean, it’s just that it fits, somehow. Reminds him of his best friend, and of him.

It’s gravity, the way the moon pulls the tides. Tadashi understands that much. That it’s not enough to take the ocean away from the Earth, but enough to make it reach for it. Being as high up, too. Being next to it. Teaching the ocean that it has enough in it to _try_ and to never stop. To at least dream of being as high as the ever-changing moon.

It doesn’t matter that it’s almost impossible for Tadashi to get there. It matters that he gets to see it. To witness all of it, the way the moon circles him throughout the day, the way it bathes itself in shadow and glows its brightest. The way it’s even strong enough to block out the light of the sun, when the time is right.

It’s enough, to make Tadashi never stop reaching. To make Tadashi Tadashi, or at least the Tadashi he is now, instead of someone else. Tadashi doesn’t know who he’d have inside him if he didn’t know Tsukishima so much of his life. 

Which is sappy, and too poetic like he said, but it’s… kind of pleasant, too. He likes thinking about it; it even makes him feel better about watching Tsukishima’s crucial blocks from the bench. The swirly fondness in his chest when he thinks about him and Tsukishima, the ocean and the moon. 

And … something else, too. Tadashi being Tsukishima’s ocean, and Tsukishima being his moon. His moon, their relationship solidified in a weird niche science-y Tsukishima-y way that somehow fits perfectly, and… _his_ moon. It’s a nice thought, somehow.

(Not in a weird way, though.)

~ ✩ ~

“Why are you reading about tides?” Tsukishima asks, and Tadashi thinks to himself that this has always been kind of inevitable.

They’re doing homework together in Tsukishima’s bedroom. Tadashi’s stupidly just agreed to let Tsukishima use his phone’s calculator instead of making fun of him for being too lazy to get it from the bag he left by the side of his bed, and it opened to the webpage Tadashi'd been reading during the train ride. “For… school. Extra credit,” Tadashi forces out, and Tsukishima looks at him like he has seven heads.

“We go to school together,” Tsukishima helpfully reminds him. “We’re in the same class. Kiryu-sensei lectured us on how we need to study harder instead of begging for extra credit last week.”

“Ah… I guess I’m just really into science now, too! Like you,” Tadashi says, and then remembers the Regional Geographic show he fell asleep watching with him the night before. “Oh, but, uh… Weather science, though! So… not really like you. Since you like biology.”

“Tides are more earth science than meteorology. Oceanography,” Tsukishima muses, and the _which you should know, if you like weather science so much_ is implied. Tsukishima is looking at him like the insides of a formaldehyde-soaked frog; his interest is piqued now, more than if Tadashi’d just brushed it off instead of telling multiple terrible lies in a row.

“It’s… personal,” Tadashi says, and it isn’t a lie enough that his voice doesn’t sound weird when he says it. But Tsukishima doesn’t seem to notice.

“The reason you’re reading—” His eyes briefly flicker to Tadashi’s phone screen. “—SciJinks dot gov article ‘What causes tides?’ is personal?”

Tadashi nods a little pathetically, and when Tsukishima turns to look at him, he must see something in his eyes, because the amused expression disappears from his face, replaced with… furrowed eyebrows, and maybe worry.

“That’s… fine, then,” he says, and then turns back to Tadashi’s phone, hopefully starting up the calculator app instead of snooping through his browser app and seeing the embarrassing amount of tabs he’s opened about the one weird, hard-to-understand subject. 

It’s quiet after that, a different kind of quiet from the normal math quiet of Tsukishima trying to make all the numbers fit together, the one academic thing that doesn’t come to Tsukishima like breathing, and it puts enough pressure on Tadashi’s brain that he starts thinking too much.

One time, when they were both younger, Tadashi’d been acting weird after school because he saw his bullies again after a long time and he still felt like a little kid. Tsukishima made an offhand comment about him acting strange, and then pushed too hard when he got defensive, and then watched Tadashi cry in his room for about an hour. 

Tsukishima never forgot about it. That’s why whenever Tadashi is acting strange, instead of telling him to stop or asking about it, he pretends he wants french fries and eats one or two and then gives him the rest, or lets him pick what they watch after school even if it isn’t his turn.

Tsukishima’s mouth is open now that all their assignments are put away, and he thinks he’s about offer it now, and the moment and the tides thing is just so— unimportant, less important than that time when they were kids, that Tadashi opens his mouth and babbles, “The moon and the ocean remind me of me and you.”

Tsukishima’s eyes furrow so deep that Tadashi wonders if the crease will be permanent, and then he says, “What?”

“Um… what I said.”

“The moon…” Tsukishima mutters, and if Tadashi weren’t so unnecessarily keyed up, he’d laugh at the bitterness, start the whole _you’re lucky your name is Tsuki_ thing. “Why are you the ocean? The tides?”

Sorry I’m not a sad dog, Tadashi thinks, even though he probably could make a comparison out of that, too, howling at the moon or something. But he doesn't want to; he won't be a tragic Akita in the mind of his best friend, even if he’s suddenly become good enough at metaphors that he could make it make sense. “The tides are because of the moon’s gravity, right? The moon pulls the ocean towards it. It probably won’t get high enough to reach the moon, but it makes it keep reaching, makes it go as high as it can. That’s… It’s kind of like what you are, to…”

Tadashi starts hearing himself, and then trails off. He looks up at Tsukishima, and there’s a pronounced frown pushing down the ends of his mouth. “That’s stupid,” Tsukishima says, and it kind of hurts a little in a way Tsukishima’s words never hurt, but he resolves to ignore it. He knew it was stupid anyway.

“You’re just upset I’m not barking outside of Shibuya Station,” Tadashi teases.

“What are you talking about?” Tsukishima says, still looking stressed, and Tadashi sighs and decides to tell the truth.

“It’s…” Tadashi thinks about what he could say to make him understand. “The ocean wouldn’t be the same without the moon. It would… It would be completely still and not reach out for anything, or it would just rage endlessly towards nothing, or…”

“You don’t understand anything about tides, do you? I understand why you had to consult SciJinks dot gov,” Tsukishima comments.

“Tsukki, at least let me finish before you make fun of me,” he says, and Tsukishima exhales.

“It isn’t… It _is_ stupid. You think about pointless things too much. You should put this much effort into English, not Japanese. Or… me,” he says. “You’re annoying about comparing me to the moon. You’ve been annoying long enough that I’ve accepted it, but even if I was the moon, you wouldn’t be… you wouldn’t be the _ocean_ ¸ Yamaguchi.” Tsukishima _tsk_ s. “It’s like you’re some kind of tragic Greek figure. Dramatic, especially for you.”

Tsukishima’s words are nice, somehow. Even though he did call him dramatic like Tadashi thought he would. “Who would I be, then?” Tadashi asks, and braces himself for the answer he knows he’s going to get.

But he doesn’t get it. “Tragic Greek figure? You’d probably be Icarus. Not Sisyphus. But you barely are because you _aren’t_ a tragic Greek figure. You’re…” Tsukishima breathes out, again. He’s getting worked up over this. “In your stupid astronomy metaphor where I’m the moon, you would be…” He eyes Tadashi, and he feels like a frog intestine again. “…the stars. Because you’re… always next to me. As ‘high’ as me. You always have been. And you’re brighter than the moon, but to see it, you have to… never mind. And…”

Tadashi feels himself smiling. Tsukishima is kind of babbling now, but he’s starting to understand why he got so worked up when he listened to him. This kind of thing that really does feel stupid when you hear it. _If I’m the moon, you’re the stars. If I’m the ocean, you’re the moon._ They’re not writing haikus. There’s an easier way to say it. “I’m glad I met you.”

Tsukishima’s eyes widen, and he rubs the back of his neck. Stops meeting Tadashi’s eyes. “Mm. I…”

“Don’t strain yourself, Tsukki,” Tadashi says, and then pats him on the back. “By the way, what were you going to say, about the ‘brighter than the moon’ thing?”

“Nothing.”

“Good, because it isn’t true. The moon is really bright, you know! I understand what you mean about being stupid now,” he says, and Tsukishima grunts in response, probably ready to drop the whole subject. Just for fun, Tadashi pokes him a little more. “Oh, but… you said ‘and,’ right? Before I cut you off?”

“It’s not like you to fish for compliments, Yamaguchi.”

“It is like me to make fun of you, though.”

Tsukishima makes an irritated noise, and then says, “Freckles. You have freckles across the bridge of your nose. I see them because you’re always next to me. They remind me of…”

Oh.

They are close a lot. Tadashi doesn’t notice usually, he thinks, but they… are close. Even right now. Suddenly he sees all of it: the pleasant roundness of Tsukishima’s cheeks, the shape of his mouth when it’s turned down into a pout. The little space between Tsukishima’s eyebrows that creases when he’s confused. Tadashi thinks about leaning forward, and then wonders why he’s thinking about it, and…

Tadashi feels his face get hot, the way his heart starts pounding in his chest. His stomach hurts a little, he thinks, so he babbles something about having to use the bathroom and runs out of Tsukishima’s bedroom.

Tadashi studies his own face in the bathroom mirror, looks at the freckles he’d never really noticed before. Light brown clustered around his nose and cheekbones. He wonders how close Tsukishima would have to be, to see them so often. He wonders if it means something, or… what he wants it to mean, which is…

The ocean is lucky it doesn’t have to get so close to the moon, Tadashi thinks to himself, and decides it’s in his best interest to not try to figure out the easier way to say it.

~ ✩ ~

The next day, Tsukishima picks a leaf out of Tadashi’s hair, the kind of casual movement he wouldn’t have thought twice about before, and the words he’s been actively trying to avoid flood his brain.

_Tsukki, I like you._

A little bitterly, he wonders how long it’ll take Tsukishima to hear this one.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote yamaguchi like this in make the heart grow, but this was actually my trial run for this kind of yamaguchi, which is why it's a little rough around the edges. hope you found a way to enjoy it anyway! it's probably the only way i will write yamaguchi from now on.....i love niceboy yamaguchi.
> 
> take care! i'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/jailsgrr) if you need anything.
> 
> [scijinks dot gov article what causes tides](https://scijinks.gov/tides/#:~:text=High%20tides%20and%20low%20tides,side%20farthest%20from%20the%20Moon.&text=When%20you're%20in%20one,you%20experience%20a%20high%20tide.)


End file.
